Data on tool use from O*Net's Tools and Technologies Supplement can, in conjunction with task-based measures, provide a new proxy for measuring and distinguishing general and specific skills at the occupational level. The tools and types of tools used in an occupation generate reasonable proxies...

Because of difficulties measuring pollution, many prior papers suggest a subsidy to some observable method of reducing pollution. We take three such papers as examples, and we extend each of them to show how welfare under the suggested subsidy can be increased by the addition of an output tax....

Using data from approximately 1,000 small and mostly rural municipalities from Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, the authors study choices in production arrangements over a wide range of services, and examine a variety of contracting options available to local governments. The data reveal...

This study uses data on Canadian establishments to test whether particular organizational structures are correlated with the likelihood of adopting process and product innovations, controlling for the endogeneity of the predictors. We find that establishments with decentralized decision-making,...

This study uses a survey of Canadian workers with rich, matched data on job characteristics to examine whether “enriched” job design, with features like quality circles, feedback, suggestion programs, and task teams, affects job satisfaction. We identify two competing hypotheses on the...